


into the fire

by Kappa (Peahen), playboyphilanthropist



Category: Glowfic and Related Works
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-22 13:00:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17663117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peahen/pseuds/Kappa, https://archiveofourown.org/users/playboyphilanthropist/pseuds/playboyphilanthropist
Summary: (happy birthdays to some very excellent herbs)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainworthy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainworthy/gifts).



It's something about the way he moves.

Normally I like girls, and boys are kind of an afterthought. They're still good, they're just not _as_ good.

This one, though...

I don't know. He draws my eye. There's... this is stupid but I can't think of a way to put it that's not stupid... I've never had any trouble feeling alive, but he makes me feel like if I did, watching him would help.

Also he's hot. But plenty of people are hot, and I don't feel like this about most of them.

Anyway. The first time I saw him, I hadn't even been planning on buying that day, and he wasn't for sale; he was serving drinks while I talked to his owner about the selection of disposable women available this week. I only noticed him at first because his delicate silk robe covered an unusual amount of skin for this establishment and I liked the design but thought it was a bit much. There's subtly signaling that your waitstaff aren't on offer as sex toys and then there's wrapping them up like you're afraid your customers are going to fuck and run. I only even did that one time, and it was three years ago. Who expects a sixteen-year-old to resist a face that pretty?

But once I was looking at him, I kind of _did_ want him. I couldn't even figure out why at first. His face was barely showing; the only skin I saw was a single hand. And yet I looked at that hand, and the line of his shoulders under blood-red silk, and I imagined throwing him to the ground and fucking his face right there. Didn't, of course, that's extremely bad manners. I drank my wine and chatted about the weather and listened to the merchant talk up the shipment of trained courtesans he was getting in next week, and then I paid half price for a girl he'd given up on training and I took her home and fucked her to death. The merchant wanted me to do it in-house, to make an example of her, but I told him that in that case he should be paying _me_.

The next week, I came in to see the fabled shipment, not expecting much; trained courtesans are something of a waste of money for someone who goes through them as fast as I do. The servant boy was there again, and even though I was too distracted to ask about him, my eyes kept returning to that silk-veiled shape. 

On the third visit, I bought him. I am not a patient man.

His owner was surprised—tried to talk me out of it, in fact. "You don't want _him_ ," he insisted, like he was some sort of expert on what I want. 

"Are you that attached? Does the boy shit gold?" I wondered. "Come on, he can't be _that_ fancy if you're making him pour wine. Or do you mean there's something wrong with him?"

"Well, maybe _you_ wouldn't mind—Boy, come here," he directed. "Show the man your face."

The slave hesitated a moment—just a few heartbeats, but long enough that I noticed—and then walked over to stand in front of me, cringing slightly, and dropped his veil.

He was beautiful.

Oh, not that I couldn't see what the merchant was talking about. It wasn't subtle. Half his face was melted off. But he had gorgeous eyes, and they looked especially good holding a spark of fear, and I wouldn't spend so much time horrifically mutilating people if I didn't like the results.

"I'm taking him," I said immediately. "And don't try to rip me off, either, you'd never sell this one if it wasn't for me. He's not even that good at serving wine." The boy flinched. I laughed. "I'll give you ten silver for him."

"Ten silver—!"

"Where are you going to get a better deal, selling him to the alchemists to chop up for parts? He's only got half his skin—or less, how far _does_ it go—"

The merchant grumbled, but accepted my price. It was less than I'd ever paid for a slave, no matter how badly discounted for behavioural issues. And I didn't even care; I would've sold a house for him. Not _all_ my houses, mind you, but definitely at least one. When I want things I _want_ them.

When I turned to lead my new slave home, he moved as though to put his veil back up, and I caught his wrist and squeezed, shaking my head. "I want to look at you," I said. He didn't seem to have any idea what to think of that. I laughed and let go, and he followed me home, keeping his head down so that every time I wanted to look at his face I had to turn to him and tip his chin up with my hand. I didn't mind. I liked touching him. His skin was soft, and his melted parts—

Well, after touching his face a few times, I got impatient again.

We passed by the mouth of an alley, a narrow trash-strewn lane between two restaurants, and I dragged him in for a little privacy and shoved him against a wall and tore open his robe and ran my hands down his chest. He whimpered in fear, and maybe a little pleasure. 

The scars felt strange. I wasn't used to touching burn marks this _old_. I liked the dry slickness under my hand, the way they bent and folded instead of stretching like normal skin, and I especially liked the helpless little moans I heard as I caressed them.

"You're gorgeous," I breathed, "look at you—" and I grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him hungrily. He clung to me, shaking. I kissed him again. "You're a treasure." Again. "I want to peel you apart." Again. "Suck my cock."

"I—I'm not—" he stammered breathlessly.

"Not trained for that? I'll bet you aren't," I said, and rather than continue arguing with him about it I shoved him to his knees and fucked his face. He made the most delicious choking sounds, struggling for air, and I kept going without mercy until half a minute later I spilled down his throat.

"See?" I said, petting his face, as he coughed and choked and drooled. "Trained or no, you were perfect. My perfect beautiful slave."

His soft skin flushed with anger; even the scars darkened a little. "M-my lord can mock me as he likes," he muttered.

I laughed. "Mock you? Not a bit. If I wanted to mock you I'd call you a dumb slut who doesn't know his death when it buys him at market and rapes him in an alley."

He glared up at me. "If you're my death then kill me."

I grinned. "With _pleasure_ ," I assured him.

He squirmed slightly, and it didn't look like fear. I wiped his face with his discarded veil and, rather than wait for him to be steady on his feet, threw him over my shoulder and carried him the rest of the way home.

Just inside the garden gate, I set him on his feet again. He looked nervously at my face, then the ground, then my face again. Since throwing him against a wall and kissing him was so much fun the first time, I decided to do some more of it. He moaned and didn't struggle. His eager submission was delicious in its own way, but I wanted pain, I wanted fear, I wanted him to look at me like I was the god of his world.

I pulled him away from the garden wall, wrapped an arm around him, set my other hand on his shoulder, and popped it out of joint.

He let out the most incredible whimper, and I did the other one too, and there came over his face a very gratifying look of awe. When I kissed him again, he tried clumsily to embrace me with his dislocated arms. 

"Would you like it even better if I started breaking bones?" I murmured. He nodded emphatically. I laughed. "I've never met someone so eager for me to destroy them. Come along, then, my pretty thing."

I led him up the back stairs into the house. My bedroom was just a few turns away from the top. He followed me without hesitation, stumbling a little as his arms refused to move quite right. I discovered that I _liked_ having my new toy walk so readily to his doom. Most slaves don't need me to outright drag them, at least not that early, but I'd never had one this enthusiastic.

It occurred to me that I could let this one live. But then I wouldn't get to cut him open and watch him bleed out on my floor. Decisions, decisions.

I didn't have to decide anything yet, though. First I threw him on my bed, and as he lay there squirming I pounced, pinning him down by his shoulders. His cock twitched, a hard bulge that threatened to escape from his thin silk undershorts. I tore the fabric away and put my mouth to him.

He really did make the most _delicious_ noises.

Especially when I used my teeth.

I'd never trained for this either, needless to say, but it turned out to be pretty easy to successfully suck a cock whose owner begs for more when you bite it. I gave him everything he asked for, in shuddering fragments of words gasped out between moans of ecstatic agony; I was in a generous mood, and he mostly wanted things I'd been planning to do anyway. _Please more_ is an easy request to grant.

When he finished, I bit down harder still, and swallowed my first taste of his blood along with the rest. He seemed to like that. As I pulled my mouth off him, I ran my tongue up the messy line between skin and scar, and he choked like I was fucking his face again. It was gorgeous.

"You're beautiful," I told him, nuzzling his stomach. He whimpered. I kissed my way to the clean skin of his hip, then bit it, hard, holding him down while he squirmed. When I tasted blood again, I relented for the moment, and lifted my head to look at his face. Never have I seen such a perfect blend of bliss and terror. 

"Beautiful," I repeated. "My slut, my toy, my slave, my treasure."

He let out a shaky moan. I rewarded him by biting him again. I had to get a good grip and lean my weight on him to hold him in place; he squirmed very energetically. But with one hand on his chest and the other on his thigh, I kept him pressed to the bed where I could devour him at leisure. He twitched every time something brushed against his cock, so after I was done with the second bite I shifted my grip and wrapped my hand around it, stroking slowly. He was half-hard again after only a few seconds. I bit his hip again, overlapping the first two. His cock twitched in my hand, and I laughed into his blood-smeared skin.

"Mmmm." I let go and sat up. "You stay there, my lovely. I'll be back in a moment."

He moved, reaching for me, and I laughed and shoved him back down onto the bed, and he whimpered and stayed put as I walked away, trying to remember where I'd left the good knives. I found a few of them scattered across the side table in the sitting room, decided that was good enough, and collected them to take back with me.

The ornate brazier that sat by the head of my bed had a few gaps in its dome of lacy wrought iron through which one might insert the blade of a knife one wished to heat. I stuck all three knives into it, lit it with a wave of my hand, and pounced.

"Miss me?"

My pretty thing whimpered, unable to take his eyes off the glow of the coals. I dragged his head around and kissed him, biting his lips and tongue until blood filled his mouth.

"I asked you a question," I reminded him.

"...'s," he slurred, drooling blood on my bed despite his best efforts to swallow it. "M'sshd y'."

I laughed, and kissed him again, and ducked my head to sink my teeth into his shoulder. He was so very biteable. I extracted a few more lovely noises from him that way, then lay back and dragged his head into my lap and fucked his face.

He choked, on his blood and my cock, and struggled briefly but then clung to me, shaking. I let him pull back enough to breathe, just once, before I grabbed him by the hair and rammed my cock down his throat. Spit and blood made a mess of my sheets. The sounds he made, helpless and breathless and desperate, were incredible. I wanted to keep going until he fainted for lack of air, but waiting for him to wake up afterward would've been tedious.

Then again... I glanced up at the brazier. The blades were starting to glow.

I smiled down at my treasure, and stroked his hair, and made him choke on my cock until his body went weak and clumsy. He struggled a little, toward the end, but stopped soon afterward. The last thing he did before he went limp was reach down to stroke himself, and he didn't quite make it.

I pulled his head up, let the blood run out, made sure he was breathing... and then I fished out the restraints hanging off the edge of the bed, chained his hands together and locked them to the headboard, in case he changed his mind about how much he wanted this. I had a suspicion that if I pushed him too far he might fight back, and though I found I rather liked the idea, I wanted to be sure he wouldn't get far if he tried.

Then, with a soft kiss for his slack and bloody lips, I reached over, pulled out the shortest knife, and traced the point down his side. It left a thin pink trail on his clean pale skin, but although he stirred a little, he didn't wake until I drove the knife between his ribs.

His eyes flew open, and he gave a hoarse ragged scream, bucking wildly. I kept hold of the knife, twisting it back and forth as he thrashed around in a panic. Finally he subsided, and I let go. The knife stayed put, wobbling only when he shivered.

"Prettiest thing I've ever seen," I told him, running my hand down his chest along the border between burned skin and whole. He shivered harder. I slid back a little and leaned down to take his cock in my mouth.

It sounded like he was trying to speak, but all he managed was a rattling croak. I hummed amusement and stroked him with my tongue. He arched into my touch, then fell back with a whimper as the movement jarred the knife in his side. I reached up and gave the handle a playful tap, and he moaned, hoarse and shaky and something like worshipful.

I liked that sound. I liked that sound a _lot_.

Sucking him off was even more fun the second time, with everything I'd learned from the first. I held him down and did all the things to him that he liked best, and whenever he didn't seem grateful enough I flicked the handle of the knife and he shuddered and made helpless broken noises. 

When I thought he was getting close, I grabbed the knife and twisted hard. Whether or not I'd been right before I did that, I certainly was afterward. He screamed, gasped, screamed again, and came.

I kept my mouth on him until he was done, then swallowed and sat up, pulling out the knife along the way. He lay in my bed, limp with exhaustion, bleeding in slow trickles from the bite marks and the hole in his side. I slid the knife back into the brazier...

...and looked at my pretty toy, lying there so sweetly satisfied...

...and leaned in close to whisper in his ear, "Want to see some real magic?"

He shuddered—looked at me, eyes wide and fearful—and nodded, shaky and hesitant and... _yearning_.

I reached into the brazier and pulled out a handful of hot coals.

The heat felt pleasant, like a warm drink on a cold day. My slave was not so lucky. When I pressed my burning bounty against his chest, he screamed again, shaking hard enough to scatter embers among the sheets. Flames sprang up in their wake. His eyes darted from side to side, and I saw new terror on his face. With scars like his, it was no wonder he feared the fire.

I grinned at him, and leaned down to kiss and bite the freshly burned skin. He squirmed, struggled, moaned, made pleading noises—I couldn't even tell whether he was begging me to stop or to keep going. Maybe he couldn't either. My hand found the hole in his side, and I stuck my finger into it, and he whimpered so deliciously that I found myself finger-fucking the wound just to hear the sounds he made about it. Pity it was too small to fit my cock. I'd have loved to fuck that raw burned bleeding hole.

One thought led to another, and I hummed consideringly at this new mental image. Yes, that _would_ work perfectly, wouldn't it?

I swept up my handful of coals, slid off him, and turned him over. The coals went back in the brazier, and my mouth went to the back of his neck, to trace the border of the scarring down his spine with my teeth. He whimpered whenever either of us moved, which added up to quite a lot of whimpering. The fire on the bed crept close enough to lick at his sides, and he pressed his face into the pillows to escape the sight.

The trail I was following broke apart where it met his lower back; skin and scar were mingled there, like he'd been splashed with hot oil. What a lovely image. I paused a moment to admire it, then swept a hand down his back and slid my fingers down between his cheeks in a teasing caress. He moaned and arched up into the touch, and whined when I took my hand away.

I picked up a coal from the brazier, and smiled to see him presenting himself to me so eagerly, and spread him open and pressed the burning ember in.

His voice gave out mid-scream.

I picked up another one, and held him still for it as best I could. He shuddered and twisted like he couldn't figure out whether this was the worst or the best thing imaginable. A third coal went in, and a fourth, and then I pressed my fingers in after them and finger-fucked him gently while he writhed and sobbed. At first it was all sharp corners in there, but soon enough it all crumbled to powder, and he was as ready as he was going to get.

I took my hand away and gave him my cock in its place.

It was even better than I'd imagined. I'd fucked a handful of embers before, of course—I doubt there's a fireborn who hasn't—but his body kept the heat in so much better than my hand, and he hissed and sobbed and whimpered and struggled so beautifully, and every little touch of flame from the burning bed made him twitch and flinch and shudder. It was glorious.

I finished sooner than I'd meant to, and lay on top of him for a moment to catch my breath, with my cock still wrapped in that fiery heat. It felt nice. I kissed the back of his neck, and he shuddered. Flames tickled my sides.

I sighed. If I didn't do something about that, I'd just end up having to replace the bed.

A moment's concentration, and the flames pulled inward, soaking into my skin until nothing remained but a lovely pattern of scorch marks on my slave and my blankets. He tensed warily, then relaxed. I rolled off him and reached up to undo his chains. His wrists were bloody, scraped raw by his struggles. He rubbed them, winced, and looked at me. I saw fear and confusion in his beautiful eyes. He flinched when I put my hand to the hole in his side, then looked utterly lost when I used the power I'd pulled from the fire to heal it as good as new.

"Looks like I'm not killing you tonight," I told him, pulling him in for a kiss. "Mmmm. Are you disappointed?"

Slowly, he shook his head.

I flicked my fingers to extinguish the lights. The sun had set while we were having our fun; the only light left was the sullen glow of the brazier. I wrapped my arms around my treasure, kissed the side of his neck, and went to sleep thinking happily of all the awful things I could do to him in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

And now it's the morning, and I—

I'm starting to realize I might have made a mistake, somewhere along the line.

He's so _beautiful_. It's the first thing I see when I wake up, the first thing I hear, smell, feel: this gorgeous boy, curled up in my arms, smiling with his half-melted mouth. He's taller than I am. I'm not used to them being taller.

I'm not used to letting them live this long.

I'm not used to feeling this flutter in my heart when I look at someone I spent last night torturing, this insistent sensation I can't put a name to. I look at him and I don't want to look away. I look at him and I want to scoop him into my arms and squeeze him tight, except I don't want to do that because he's still sleeping and he's so perfect and pretty and soft and I couldn't bear to wake him up. I want to put my hands around his neck and strangle him a little, see how he likes waking up that way. I want to heal everything I did to him last night and pet his hair and feed him breakfast. I want to drag him into the bath and clean off last night's mess and then heat my knives again and see how he likes it when I use them on his cock. I want to carve away his scars and heal them fresh so I can see what his face looks like with skin on both sides. I want to build a bonfire and fuck him in it, a full-on royal wedding night, nothing but my will to protect him from the flames. I want—I want—

I can't decide what I want, and I find myself curling up around him and pressing my face into his shoulder. He stirs, and I curse myself silently—I can't let him know how I feel— _I_ don't even know how I feel, and if he finds out he'll never take me seriously again, what kind of prince dreams of marrying a slave? I'm supposed to be a terrifying force of nature, the place where bad slaves go to die screaming. I'm not supposed to... I don't know. Whatever it is I'm doing, I'm not supposed to do it.

I feel him draw inward, tensing with the realization that he's still in the bed where I tortured him last night. Then I feel him relax, slowly, and set a tentative hand on my shoulder.

"You all right?" he asks, in a horrible rasp that brings a smile to my face. He screamed so beautifully.

I open my mouth to answer, and I can't think of a single word. My breath catches in my throat. I hug him tighter, squeezing hard enough to bruise, and he makes a small protesting sound but doesn't try to pull away.

"...You're _mine_ ," I say finally. It's just about the only thing I'm sure of.

"...yeah," he says quietly, soft enough that his voice sounds only half as wrecked as before. "Yeah, I am."

I squeeze him tighter, tighter, and then let go with a sigh. He hesitates, then nestles closer. My heart flutters again. It feels like the most important thing in the world that he wants to be near me.

Searching desperately for something to say, I finally settle on, "...Do you have any skills besides screaming very prettily?"

—he laughs, and the laugh trails off into a choking cough, and he buries his face in my shoulder and I pet his hair until he regains the ability to speak.

"I play the harp," he offers.

"I'm buying you a harp," I say immediately.

He makes a small sound of surprise, and I hiss defensively and yank on his hair, instinctively trying to make him _stop that_ even though in fact there's no conceivable way pulling his hair will stop him from having unauthorized thoughts. He goes still and scared and quiet, and I feel two very strong conflicting urges: part of me wants to pounce on that delicious fear and fuck him senseless while he trembles with it, but part of me wants to hold him and pet him and soothe him until he feels safe in my arms.

There is no logical way I can possibly have both of these things. Certainly not at the same time.

I take a deep breath, and let go of his hair, and hug him gently. "Sorry," I murmur. The word tastes unfamiliar in my mouth. What the _fuck_ am I doing apologizing to a slave? "You... startled me."

But the half-truth itches, the way they always do.  I withstand it for another few heartbeats before blurting out, "I'm embarrassed that I care so much about you."

Fuck. Fuck! Why did I say that? In what possible way does giving him that information improve my life??? He'll never respect me now—you can't show weakness around a slave, you can't let them think you're soft—

He doesn't seem to have any more idea what to do with that sentence than I do. It hangs in the air unanswered as I slowly calm my panic and resume petting him.

Eventually he says, quiet and hesitant, smiling just a little, "If anyone ever accuses you of caring about me I'll tell them about the time you shoved hot coals up my ass."

I laugh, suprised and relieved, and he starts laughing too, and soon we're curled up together giggling on each other in a breathless heap. Whenever one of us slows down, the other's ongoing laughter sets him off again. My lungs ache and my eyes stream with tears and I can't stop laughing. He's so good, he's perfect, how could I ever hurt him, how could I ever _stop_ hurting him, he's so _good_...

I wipe my eyes on the corner of a scorched blanket, and finally begin to catch my breath. My treasure giggles softly into my chest, but soon he, too, subsides.

"You need a bath," I decide. "So do I, for that matter. And I should give the servants time to fix the bed. Come on."

I slide out of bed, and he follows, slow and grumbly and looking up at me with a nervous half-smile to see if I'm going to let him get away with such undisciplined behaviour. I laugh, and scoop him up and sling him over my shoulder. "Lazy slaves get carried to their doom!"

"Remind me," he wheezes, "to be lazy more often—"

"Fond of your doom, are you?"

"It's—" wheeze, giggle "—it's pretty good doom."

I find I can't stop smiling.


	3. Chapter 3

I toss a spark of flame into the bowl next to the bath faucet. The pipes rumble, and hot water comes pouring out, sending billows of steam into the still air. I nuzzle my slave's pretty face while I wait for the bath to fill. He giggles and squirms.

When the bath is half full, I step down into the warm water and sit back against the side... and he shrieks and recoils, nearly making it out of my lap before I catch him and pull him back down.

"Too hot for you?" I ask, teasingly; I can see the pink flush rising in his skin. He whimpers and struggles, and I sit down the rest of the way and hold him firmly in my lap. The bath is deep enough that if I tried I could drown him in it, even now at half capacity; but I don't _want_ to drown him. I want to hurt him, not kill him. 

"I like the way you squirm," I murmur, reaching between his shaking legs to wrap my hand around his cock. The water rises around us as I stroke him. With the heat feeding my power, I have no trouble keeping him just this side of outright blisters. I have a moment of surprise when the first rush of undirected healing makes his shoulders go _crunch_ , and then I remember that I dislocated them last night and half-accidentally shoved them back into place but never set them properly afterward, and everything that's happened since then gets a little hotter in retrospect as I think about him struggling against his chains like that. My hand tightens, and I bite his newly healed shoulder.

"I—I— _fuck_ ," he gasps. It's a beautiful sound. He's a beautiful treasure. And it's... simpler, like this, keeping him too dazed by pain and pleasure to have a proper conversation. I don't know how to have a conversation with a slave, but I sure do know how to torture one.

"I was thinking," I say, nibbling his ear between words, "about carving all your scars away and healing you. It'd hurt. A lot. Much worse than this. I'd have to be on fire the whole time if I wanted to be sure you wouldn't die, and I do very much want that."

He shudders. I stroke a little faster.

"And then," I continue, "I could put them _back_."

He whimpers and struggles and clumsily fucks my hand. I laugh, and kiss his neck, and let go just as he's getting into it. He makes the most _amazing_ sound, half a whine and half a growl. 

"You're beautiful," I tell him, holding him down in my lap, where my cock is starting to rise in response to all his delicious squirming. "You're mine and you're beautiful and I'm keeping you and I'm going to do whatever I want with you, forever, starting with _this_ ," and I push his head underwater.

He struggles desperately. When I pull him up, his skin glistens pink and he coughs scalding water from his lungs. I hold him close and kiss him, biting his lips and then biting them again when they heal.

"My treasure—my _best_ , my _favourite_ treasure—my lovely, my beautiful—"

I want to fuck him, but I have tried fucking a slave in the bath before and it never turns out as well as I think it's going to. So instead I do the next best thing, and duck under the water myself. I haven't practiced holding my breath much, but in water this hot I can probably keep myself going long enough. I grab his hips in both hands and take his cock in my mouth.

He struggles, splashing water everywhere. I drag my teeth along his shaft, and even through the water I can hear him hissing and moaning. I deliberately let the healing slip, so that for a few heartbeats he feels the full heat of the near-boiling water without my power to preserve him against it, and he screams and tries to fuck my face, but I've got him pinned to the side of the bath and I keep working at my own pace. When I heal him again, he slumps in relief.

For a little time, what would be a few breaths if I was breathing, I go slow and gentle and keep him shielded almost completely from the heat, letting through just enough to sting very badly. He squirms with impatience, now, instead of pain and panic.

And then I drop the healing again, pull him underwater with me, and swallow him down as deep as I can take him.

Screaming, thrashing, drowning, he spills his seed straight down my throat.

I heal him again after a moment, and keep swallowing until he's thoroughly done, and then I take my mouth off him and stand up, hauling him above the surface. He's limp and dizzy in my arms, coughing weakly, flinching when a hand or foot trails into the heat.

The faucet shuts off, having finally finished filling our bath.

I kiss my treasure and hold him and heal him until he stops shaking.

Then I sit down again. He flinches when he touches the water, but I keep him safe, healing him too fast for the heat to sink in. Just a light sting, that's all. I cuddle him in my lap and pet him and kiss his gorgeous face, and, gradually, he relaxes.

I'm a little surprised when he starts squirming again, but it's a different kind of squirming this time; he's rubbing up against my cock, like he's silently begging me to fuck him. I laugh and bite his shoulder affectionately.

"You want me?" I murmur.

"Yeah," he breathes.

"My treasure." I nuzzle him. "I'm tempted. Fucking in the bath is always so disappointing, though."

He lets out a pleading whine, and I laugh and hug him closer.

"I could take you _out_ of the bath," I suggest, and he whines again, squirming more vigorously. Oh, that's fun. "So you _like_ being a little bit boiled?"

An affirmative whimper.

"Maybe I should suck you off again." He shudders. "Drown you again." He shudders harder. "I love to make you scream." He presses himself down into my lap. "You know what I _really_ want to do?"

"'s it involve me being on fire?" he guesses.

I laugh. "Oh, very much so. I want to build a roaring bonfire, and drag you into it, and stuff you with fresh hot coals, and fuck you senseless."

He makes an intrigued/aroused/terrified noise. For a moment I worry that maybe he recognizes the premise of the fantasy, but where would he have learned what a royal wedding is like? And anyway it's not like I want to marry him; setting him on fire is just objectively really hot.

...oh.

It is, isn't it. It is exactly like I want to marry him. Marrying him is exactly the thing that I want.

Setting him on fire is objectively really hot _too_ , of course.

In an attempt to distract myself from my insane desire to marry a slave, I scoop him a little higher in my lap and slip my hand between his legs. He shivers when my fingers brush past his cock, and again when I stroke his balls, and when I press two fingers into his ass he _moans_. Black flakes of charcoal escape him and swirl away. I wrap my other arm around his waist, bite the back of his neck, and fuck him with my fingers. He makes the most delightful noises, and this is not at _all_ taking my mind off the thought of fucking him in a bonfire, but I have a hard time minding.

A thought occurs to me.

"You don't know much about fireborn, do you?"

"N-no my lord," he gasps. "Fuck—" He squirms desperately. "Please, please—want your cock—want—hurt me—"

I reach into one of the braziers next to the bath, pick out a hot coal, and pop it in my mouth. My treasure is too busy squirming and fucking my fingers to notice the hiss of steam or the crunch as I bite down. He's seen me touch fire, but he hasn't seen me _eat_ it. It'll make a nice surprise.

Maybe bath sex will manage not to be disappointing this time.

I shift my grip, take my hand out of him, and pull him down onto my cock. He lets out an extremely flattering moan, long and low and deeply satisfied, and I wrap the hand that was fucking him around his hip and slide my other hand up to squeeze his throat, not even strangling him, just reminding him that I could. He makes more blissful noises, and I pull him close against me and kiss the back of his neck with my mouthful of fire.

He screams.

I fuck him hard, thrusting deep, letting the healing flicker in the same rhythm so that the pain is greatest when my cock is fully inside him. He thrashes helplessly in my lap, straining futilely against my fireborn strength. I open my mouth wider, press fragments of burning embers against the back of his neck with my tongue, then bite down hard. He screams again. My beautiful slave. I tighten my grip on his throat until the screaming stops, and that's how I come, fucking him while he shudders and makes desperate choked noises. 

Afterward, I settle back against the side of the bath and hold him in my lap, my cock still inside him and my mouth still fastened to the back of his neck. He gasps and coughs and squirms and shakes and splashes, but there's nowhere he can go and nothing he can do. He's _mine_. My treasure. I swallow what's left of the ember so I can use my teeth and tongue on his burns without a mess of half-cooled charcoal in the way. 

Slowly, I let the healing fade. He whimpers, then relaxes. The water has cooled enough that he doesn't need my protection from it. I playfully bite the back of his neck, and he moans; and then I wrap my arms around his waist and lean back against the side of the bath and just hold him. 

I was right; that wasn't disappointing at _all_.

"Mmm. Should feed you," I murmur lazily, snuggling him. "Got to take good care of my favourite thing."

He shivers a little. I kiss the back of his neck, lightly, just beside the lingering burn. He shivers some more.

I want to tease him a little—tell him that maybe I'll just fuck him all day and keep him alive with magic, or that after breakfast I want to try sucking him off again with a mouthful of fire—but I open my mouth and no words come out. I tighten my arms around his waist, hold him close and safe and warm, my most precious treasure. I can't—I don't understand why I feel this way. I don't understand what this feeling _is_. I—

"—I love you," I whisper into the back of his neck.

He goes still.

"You're—perfect and precious and beautiful—and I want to fuck you in a bonfire—that's how fireborn marry out of the bloodline—I want to keep you _forever_ , happy and safe and _mine_ , I want to—give you everything you've ever wanted and kiss you and hold you and hurt you and fuck you and kill anyone who tries to take you away from me—I—" I'm crying now, why the _fuck_ am I crying, what kind of idiot breaks down in tears over a slave?

He pulls himself out of my lap a little, and I instinctively clutch him tighter, but all he's doing is turning around so he can hug me. That... is okay. I am now sobbing very quietly into his shoulder while he awkwardly wraps his arms around me and pets my hair. This is fine. I am fine.

(I am not fine.)

The thing about being in love with a slave is—if I only wanted him _alive_ I could do that, if I only wanted him _mine_ I could do that, if I only wanted to hold him, if I only wanted to fuck him, if I only wanted to torture him, those are all things you can do to someone who's yours—but I _love_ him, and I want to make him _happy_ , and I have never successfully made someone happy in my life. You can force a lot of things from a slave but true happiness isn't one of them.

Part of me wants to explain this to him and part of me wants to bite my tongue until I physically can't speak because every time I talk to him about anything other than sex I say some new thing even more stupid and insane and crushingly vulnerable than the last.

It's soothing, though, just being hugged. He's warm and solid and his body fits nicely against mine. Maybe everything will be okay. Maybe he'll keep being this easy to please forever. Maybe I'll never take him too far by accident and break him or make him hate me.

Yeah, right.

So I take a deep breath, and I clench my jaw to stifle my sobs until my aching throat relaxes a little, and I whisper the hardest six words I've ever spoken:

"Do you _want_ to marry me?"


	4. Chapter 4

There is a pause, not longer than a few breaths. In my heart it lasts for years.

Then he says, slowly, "...do I get a choice?"

...I swallow several times, trying to get my voice steady so I can explain. 

"There's—there's things I can take from you by force, and if I only wanted those, I would," I say haltingly. "I could keep you and rape you and torture you and—maybe you'd even like it, you've liked what I've done with you so far—but if I want your _happiness_ , if I want... if I want you to _have things you want_ then I have to know what those _are_."

"Oh."

He is quiet for another painfully long moment.

Then: "...I want... I want to play the harp. In private, just with you. And then I think I'll know if I want to marry you."

Part of me is glad he has such a simple request and part of me is anguished and furious that he didn't answer immediately. I am not going to be very good at making him happy if I lose my temper every time he makes me wait for something. I tell myself that it's _good_ that he asked, that if he knows he can ask me for things and he'll _get_ them then the project of his happiness is going to go a whole lot more smoothly. I hug him very tightly and nod, because it's hard to speak.

He keeps hugging me. It's so good that he keeps hugging me.

"...would I still be your slave? If you married me?"

"...you'd be _mine_ either way," I say, struggling to explain complex legalities that I'm only half sure of myself. "And - married in the law is different from married in the magic. I want to marry you in the magic. I'm not sure I _can_ marry you legally, I don't know of anyone who's tried it, but if not then the law can go fuck itself, the magic's what's important."

"What's the magic do?"

"It makes you... part of me. Part of my fire. Fire still hurts you but it can never kill you, you can eat coals and breathe smoke just like I can, you can heal yourself with heat like I do but you can't do it to anyone else... you're like a fireborn but with no powers that reach outside yourself." I smile, a little, and kiss his cheek. "I like burning you, I'm glad I wouldn't have to give that up completely, but it'd be nice to show you what a really hot bath feels like to _me_. Anyway, that's most of it. The rest is things married fireborn don't talk about, at least not to me."

He nods slowly. It's hard to tell what he's thinking. I try not to be nervous but I very much fail. What if he doesn't want to be part of me? I haven't been very nice to him. Or have I? It's hard to tell. I've hurt him a lot but he liked it and I liked that he liked it.

"...so I guess fireborn can't get divorced, then?"

"Oh. No," I confirm. "Married in the magic is forever."

"...you really _do_ want to keep me." He sounds tentatively pleased. I hug him tightly, grinning into his shoulder.

"Yeah. Yeah, I really do."

He's quiet for a long moment. Then, as though he can't stop himself from asking, he bursts out with, " _Why?_ "

"...Because... you're... _you_ ," I say, struggling to articulate thoughts that I'm not sure even make sense in my head. "Because—you were angry when I called you beautiful—and you make the sweetest sounds when I hurt you—and—'if anyone accuses you of caring about me I'll tell them about that time you shoved hot coals up my ass'—and 'remind me to be lazy more often', and 'it's good doom'—and 'does it involve me being on fire?'—and, and you _are_ beautiful, I love every single part of your body, I love your eyes and your smile and your mouth and your hands and your _gorgeous fucking scars_ —"

"Have you _memorized everything I've said to you_ ," he says, with a mix of emotion I have trouble identifying because I just started crying again.

I shake my head. "Not—not memorized—you're just memorable—"

"Fuck," he says softly, and he hugs me some more, and I cry on his shoulder for the second time in five minutes.

What the fuck am I even doing with my life?

But I don't care. He's _important_. He's a slave but I love him and I need him and I want him by my side forever. If that means I'm going to cry on him every five minutes for the rest of my life then fine, good, excellent, at least when I tell him I have feelings for him he'll know I mean it.

The water's getting cold. I could fix that, but there's a reason the palace has magic water pipes instead of everyone doing it themselves; heating water is _hard_ and if you underestimate the size of the job and push too much heat too fast you'll run out of magic and faint. Not that I've ever done that. Okay, not more than once. The second time I backed off when I started getting dizzy.

 _Anyway_ , it is time to actually go have breakfast.

"What are you laughing at?" he wonders, with a soft quizzical smile.

"It's a long story but the short version is that I'm an idiot."

He laughs a little. "Okay."

"Come on, let's have breakfast. Maybe I can make it ten minutes without bursting into tears about how good you are."

"Wanna bet?" he says under his breath.

I laugh and kiss him. "See, this is why I love you."

"Because I... make fun of you even though you could kill me for it?"

"Yes! Exactly!"

I scoop him up, kiss him again, and haul him out of the bath. He giggles and clings playfully to my shoulders, and I blink back tears and tell myself firmly that I should be able to go _ten minutes_ without crying on him. Even if he is very cute and good and precious and I love him so much it hurts and I get dizzy with happiness every time he smiles at me. Even then.

I pull a couple of towels off the rack by the side of the room. He squeaks when I wrap him in one, and then nuzzles his face against the thick fabric. "Soft...!" he says delightedly, and I have to put him down so I can grab his face in both hands and kiss him. There are tears in my eyes again. He's _so good_. How does he not know how good he is. 

Somehow I make it through the process of calling for breakfast (and a harp) without doing anything out of the ordinary where the servants can see. It helps that the servants don't want to spend one more second in my presence than they strictly have to. 

I haul my treasure—still wrapped in his _Soft...!_ towel—back to my bedroom, where all the things I carelessly burned have been replaced and there's a couple large trays of food waiting patiently for us. I sit down on the bed and pull him into my lap, then realize that he's really too tall for 'put him in my lap and feed him breakfast' to work, and kiss the back of his neck and laugh at myself and grab a strawberry to feed to him anyway. It's technically possible to do it, it's just that my face ends up between his shoulderblades and this makes it hard to see what I'm doing unless I lean awkwardly around him.

"Well, I tried," I say wryly, and I scoot him off my lap so we can snuggle up side by side instead. "There, that's better."

"...you're _cute_ ," he says, accusingly.

Half of me is intensely happy and half of me is defensive and embarrassed and in a tangle of conflicting impulses I blurt out, "Shut the fuck up, I love you."

He _laughs_. After a moment, a little reluctantly, I smile along. It _was_ kind of funny.

After that, breakfast is quiet and companionable (and _Soft...!_ ). I feed him fruit, and he feeds me other fruit, and his body is warm next to mine, and when I lean my head on his shoulder I feel his scars under my cheek. More intensely than I have ever wanted anything before in my life, I want to look forward to mornings like this from now until the day I die.

**Author's Note:**

> (happy birthdays to some very excellent herbs)


End file.
